B.C. sailor’s attempt to break record crosses Equator line

A month after embarking from the Victoria Inner Harbour on Oct. 3, Jeanne Socrates’s goal to break yet another world record is well underway.

The 76-year-old sailor crossed the Equator line on Nov. 4, in her attempt to become the oldest person to sail around the globe solo and unassisted. (She already holds the title for the world’s oldest woman to do so when she was 70.)

In her daily blog on svnerida.com, Socrates describes her journey and the joy she felt reaching this marker.

“I managed a lot of singing and even some dancing to the music I played during my Equator-crossing party time,” she wrote on Nov. 5.

But her mission hasn’t been smooth sailing the whole way. On Oct. 31, her wind display went down, followed by a solar panel’s input on Nov. 4. She was able to reset the wind display after someone following her blog emailed her a helpful suggestion (she’s able to receive and send emails onboard). Later that evening, her basic instruments tracking wind, speed and depth went blank. She details on her blog how she tries to solve each problem as it arises.

Before she disembarked from Victoria, she told Victoria News that while she never likes something going wrong onboard, she does enjoy the challenge.

Socrates is aiming to circumnavigate the globe in eight months, bringing her back to Victoria in May, if all goes as planned.